


Uneasy the Head that Wears the Crown

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Crime & Punishment, F/M, Friendship, Fury, Gen, Interracial Marriage, Justice, Mercy - Freeform, Plots, Politics, Prejudice, Sedition, Treason, tactics - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-03-28 10:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13901835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Roald and Shinko confront treason.





	1. Ice and Fire Veins

**Author's Note:**

> This work is set after Lady Knight when Roald (per interviews from Tammy) is a governor in the south. I have borrowed the premise of this story from the flyers described in Spy Guide though I have taken the liberty of altering the date since the date in Spy Guide doesn't make that much sense in the context of the rest of the timeline anyway (for instance, Raoul's marriage is referred to even though he wasn't married at that point). I hope that readers will enjoy the story despite that slight deviance and stay tuned for future chapters!

Ice and Fire Veins

“Your Highness!” In the south where Roald was governor, there was no need for Shinko to glance up from the invitations she was responding to at the low table in the parlor she shared with her husband because that northern burr could only belong to one person in the castle: Cameron haMinch, Roald’s erstwhile squire. There was even less cause for her to look up since Cameron was speaking to her husband, not her. 

“Yes?” Roald arched an eyebrow as he lifted his gaze from his own correspondence. 

“A fast courier just rode in with a letter to you written in His Majesty’s hand.” Cameron gave a hasty bow to Roald and then to Shinko before thrusting an envelope into Roald’s outstretched palm. 

“The courier?” Roald asked as he inspected the seal. 

“He was exhausted as his horse so I took the liberty of sending him to the kitchens for a quick bite to eat and something cool to drink, Your Highness.” Cameron was brisk but Shinko had discovered that came with the territory of birth in the haMinch clan whose members could be brusque as the wind ripping through the craggy landscape they called home. 

“Very good.” Roald’s tone was absent as he continued to study the seal for signs of tampering. 

“The seal is unbroken.” There was more than a touch of impatience in Cameron’s manner. Those of the haMinch clan, Shinko had learned, were notoriously prickly. They had to be managed with care. Of course, Roald was always careful with Cameron. Cameron had been carefully chosen during the Scanran war because his family was powerful in the north and the conservative allegiances of his clan were calculated to appease the more traditional elements in the realm. The haMinchi clan, her husband assured her, was one to count with pride that they had produced more royal squires than any other noble house including the Naxens and the Queenscoves. The haMinchi clan was one to boast in their service. “I checked, Your Highness.” 

“As did I.” Roald spoke calmly but with a cool hint that warned Cameron that further comments wouldn’t be received so graciously. Apparently satisfied that the seal was authentic and intact, Roald opened the letter. 

The frown in his forehead that he often worse when reading correspondence was carved into a crater. His fingers shaking with fear, fury, or some dreadful combination of those emotions, he extended the letter to Shinko. 

Trained in calligraphy since she was a tiny bamboo pole of a girl, the first thing Shinko noticed about the note was the deep wrath etched into each word. Some letters even slanted as if the king’s hand had trembled in the writing of them. When she read the words themselves, she understood the reason for her father-in-law’s rage. He described aspersions against himself for his relations with the Bazhir, criticism of Numair and the Wildmage for being foreign-born, attacks on the K’miri in the Queen’s Riders, condemnation of Lord Raoul’s marriage to Buri, and accusations against Roald being wed to her, a Yamani princess. He wrote that these flyers had been posted throughout the realm but his spies had not thought to advise him of this—at this point, King Jonathan seemed to scream from the parchment—until Vania had such sedition foisted upon her as she departed services at the Goddess’s temple. 

“It grieves me that Vania was given such a seditious flyer.” Shinko folded her palms over the growing life in her womb since if the Tortallan common folk hated her, how much more would they despise the unborn baby, the fruit of her marriage to the Crown Prince, stirring inside her? She comprehended the king’s furious desire to protect his own child—his own flesh and blood—though she could only feel a mother’s fear. Mothers must shiver and father shout. That was the way of the world as ordered by Yama. 

“Vania and Lianne are the two children my father would do anything in his power to protect.” Roald spoke the truth with no resentment, Shinko knew. Beautiful, charismatic Kalasin had been sent to not only survive but thrive in the cutthroat Carthaki court. Fierce Liam and clever Jasson were trained to be warriors and were now fighting along the Scanran border. Her own ever dutiful Roald had expectations high as the sky heaped on him by his father because he was heir to the throne and with that came responsibilities that could crush most men to dust. Quiet Lianne and vivacious Vania were the king’s darlings, the doted upon babies of the family. 

“Not even a king can protect his children from the fury of a mob.” In the Yamani Islands, Shinko’s remark would have amounted to treason—the emperor, ruling by the mandate of Yama, did not tolerate any uttered limitations to his authority—but in Tortall it wasn’t. 

“If any flyer was designed to provoke my father, the one he describes was.” Roald pinched the bridge of his nose. “Insults against the Bazhir and the K’miri. Accusations against the Commander of the King’s Own, a close friend. Criticism of Daine and Numair. Aspersions against our marriage, my dearest. The flyer crossed every box that could infuriate him.” 

“People are fools to be in a lather about a prince marrying a foreign bride.” Shinko wondered if her husband’s veins were fire like his father’s or ice like hers. 

“It’s a tradition in most countries except Tortall and your own Yamani Islands, my love, for royalty to wed foreign royalty in order to forge valuable alliances.” Roald’s jaw tightened until Shinko’s ached in sympathy. “Unfortunately people often aren’t governed by reason, and commoners whipped into a passion cannot fathom complex affairs of state.” 

“That is why it’s important to locate whoever is inciting the mob to fury.” Shinko finished her husband’s thought as smoothly as silk. 

Silence fell over the room until Cameron said staunchly, “Your Highnesses should be aware you have the support of the haMinchi family in this matter. Our clan has always seen the benefits of foreign marriages.” 

Shinko remembered that the haMinchi clan, famous for flinty-eyed realism hard as the stark mountains they hailed from where practicality was the highest virtue aspired to, had a proclivity for mingling their blood with that of Galla and Maren. 

“The haMinchi clan’s loyalty is never in question and forever appreciated.” Roald squeezed Cameron’s shoulder in what might have been gratitude or reassurance, and Shinko observed inwardly that this was just as well since the haMinchi clan was large enough to constitute a veritable army by itself.


	2. Cooler Heads Prevail

Cooler Heads Prevail

“These disturbing flyers were posted throughout the markets of Persopolis,” Lord Martin of Meron, who governed the only city built by the nomadic Bazhir, began bluntly where Shinko suspected another noble would have tried to soften the impact of his words. 

He didn’t read the sedition or treason on the flyers that could cause heads to roll, but he did nudge the crinkled parchments forward on the table so Roald, Shinko, and the council of lords who advised them could see for themselves the phrases designed to inflame a mob. Her blood a frozen river in her veins, Shinko noted that the flyer was full of the seditious sentiments her father-in-law had warned her and Roald about in his last letter by swift courier. The swift courier, Shinko had heard through one of her maidservants who had been in the kitchens when the courier refreshed himself with a drink, had told the cooks that the king had sworn to break a body for every tear Princess Vania had shed into his shoulder. Staring at the stark treason in the flyer, Shinko understood why. 

“The Bazhir took the flyers as an almost personal affront.” Lord Martin had to raise his voice to be heard over the enraged noises circling the table as the nobles read the flyers. 

“That is understandable when the flyers speak so derisively of Bazhir magic, my lord.” Roald’s quiet comment silenced the lords arrayed around him. “Nobody appreciates being insulted in their homeland.” 

“Your Highness speaks truly.” Lord Martin offered a half-bow in his chair. “Your Highness should be informed that the Bazhir have expressed the desire to give anyone they catch posting these flyers what they term desert justice.” 

“Desert justice?” Lord Raymond of Pearlsmouth almost choked on the iced green tea Squire Cameron had poured him. Green tea, chilled by the spells of kitchen mages, sweetened by honey, and spiced with ginseng from the Yamani Islands, provided a distinctive flavor—a drink for guests to praise and remember—but it also, Shinko believed, kept heads cooler and clearer than wine at state meetings. “I’m not acquainted with the term but can only imagine it’s brutal.” 

“It is.” Lord Martin’s lips were thin, his jaw tight, and his words as unforgiving as the blazing desert sun. “Desert justice is when the Bazhir abandon someone they judge guilty of a heinous crime in the desert, leagues away from the nearest oasis, without food, water, weapons, shelter, or an animal for transport or sustenance. Almost no one survives desert justice—most probably start hallucinating and wishing for death within a day—but the Bazhir are convinced the innocent will live.” 

“I thought you meant stoning.” Lord Raymond looked as faint as if he were about to be subjected to desert justice. “I think I’d prefer stoning, to be honest. Desert justice sounds so gruesome.” 

Shinko doubted that there were any means of execution that weren’t gruesome, but to establish as much would have destroyed the demure demeanor she so diligently cultivated. 

“Anyone caught distributing these flyers must not receive desert justice.” Roald’s eyes locked on Lord Martin’s, and Shinko was proud of her husband’s firmness. “They must be sent here for questioning and judgment.” 

“Judgment that should end in drawing and quartering,” rumbled Earl Hamrath of King’s Reach, mood as black as his beard. “These flyers which I wouldn’t even line my chamber pot with contain treason six times over and even insult Her Highness’s honor.” 

Shinko inclined her head in gracious acknowledgement of the offense he had taken on her behalf. 

“Treason must be punished harshly.” Lord Martin’s fingers strangled the arms of his chair. “That is a point on which I will agree with the Bazhir.” 

“To leave treason unpunished is to condone it.” Her husband’s statement sounded strong but Shinko heard how it could be interpreted with nuance. Roald was never one to be trapped by his own proclamations. Every word, uttered with consideration, was calculated to give him space to maneuver. 

“Drawing and quartering might be too kind a fate for these traitors on second thought.” Lightning crackled in Earl Hamrath’s stormy gaze. “They deserve to be burned alive in a pile of their own papers but only after their tongues have been pulled out and their hands chopped off for sedition.” 

“Fantasies of revenge are a distraction, Your Lordship.” Roald was all calm determination, and Shinko admired the iron inside her husband’s courtesy. “These traitors must be caught before their punishment can be decided. I suggest we focus on apprehending these traitors and then concern ourselves with the manner of their punishment.” 

“These traitors could be any farmers in their fields.” Lord Raymond of Pearlsmouth was fluttering like a goose feather with anxiety. “I did caution Their Majesties before they began their educational reforms that teaching field hands is a dangerous undertaking. Educating serfs above their station can breed sedition and treason. It’s most unfortunate that Their Majesties didn’t heed my counsel.” 

“It isn’t known that peasant farmers are to blame for distributing these flyers.” Roald spoke levelly but Shinko could see a vein jutting slightly from his temple, a subtle sign that he found the attack on his parents’ progressive policies abrasive as sand in a wound. 

“My lord of Meron can correct me if I’m mistaken”—Shinko nodded her head at Lord Martin—“but I believe that most northerners in Persopolis are merchants.” 

Shinko had discovered that the cleverest way to support her husband in meetings was to offer thoughtful remarks rather than impassioned ones. As a woman, she had more force when she remained understated. Any who underestimated her or her husband did so at their own peril. 

As Shinko had predicted, Lord Martin didn’t contradict her, and Lord Imrah of Legann, Roald’s most trusted advisor who had been silent as he weighed strategies behind hawk eyes, entered the conversation at last, observing with a careful pause between each sentence, “Merhants were an educated class long before Their Majesties extensive educational reforms. Merchants also have the funds to create these flyers and their business travel gives them the opportunity to disperse these flyers throughout the realm’s cities. I would recommend that we increase our scrutiny of our merchants. I will do so in Port Legann until this matter is resolved.” 

“Merchants will be monitored more closely in Persopolis as well.” Lord Martin was brisk as a wind whipping across the southern desert. 

When Earl Hamrath promised to do the same in King’s Reach, the Lord of Pearlsmouth could only pledge that it would be so in his fief as well. 

“We will track down these traitors and bring them to justice for the security of the kingdom.” Roald concluded the meeting with a crisp nod. “Remember our goal is to capture them, not kill them on the spot. Contact me if possible before making a major move, good councilors.”


	3. Debt of Friendship

Debt of Friendship

“Your Highness has many friends in Port Legann from your time as a squire.” Lord Imrah’s words, Shinko could see clear as light shimmering through crystal, couldn’t cut through Roald’s brooding. 

“I hope I do, my lord.” Roald frowned into the goblet of Tyran wine of which he had yet to take a sip. 

“Some of your friends are among the merchant class.” Lord Imrah leaned forward on his couch, extending a letter to Roald. “I received this from a certain Emma who was once a servant in my household but is now married to a wealthy merchant.” 

“I remember Emma. She was never shy about speaking her mind.” There was a trace of fondness in Roald’s tone that might have sparked a jealous fire in Shinko if she hadn’t trusted that her husband had ever been faithful to her even before they had met. His slight smile was replaced by a furrowed frown as he read the note’s contents. “She writes of a clandestine meeting of the traitors on the next full moon—a mere week from now—in an abandoned guildhall. She doesn’t mention how she heard of such a secret meeting. It could be a trap where she was given false information because it was known that she would pass it along to us.” 

“I would doubt that.” Shinko trailed a finger along the cold silver rim of her chalice in contemplation. “Most men are loose-lipped around women, my dear. They do not notice us or if they do, they underestimate our cleverness and strength. It never occurs to most men that a woman could undo them.” 

“No one could ever fail to see you, my love, and anyone who underestimates your intelligence or resolve is a fool.” Roald squeezed her knee on the sofa they shared. 

“You underestimate me if you think I will fall for such flattery, darling.” Shinko patted his wrist to remove any sting from her comment. 

“Princess Shinkokami is correct that some men have an unfortunate tendency to overlook women.” Lord Imrah inclined his head at her, and she returned the gesture politely. “On this occasion, it might work to our advantage. It isn’t common knowledge in Port Legann that Emma enjoyed your friendship in the past, Roald. I believe her information is accurate, not planted by the traitors.” 

“I suppose Emma is smart enough to realize if she’s being tricked,” conceded Roald after a moment’s reflection. “How did she manage to send this letter to you so swiftly, my lord?” 

“She hired the fastest couriers she could and had her husband’s guards protect and watch them,” Lord Imrah answered. 

“She must be reimbursed for the expense of couriers and for the time her husband’s guards spent protecting the messengers.” Roald spoke firmly, and Shinko nodded. It was vital that the Crown preserve its golden image by recompensing and rewarding its faithful servants. Loyalty that went uncompensated could be distressingly fleeting and unlikely to inspire others to similar heights of devotion. 

“I have already done so from my own purse. The letter was addressed to me, after all. Probably to attract less attention.” Lord Imrah rubbed his chin with a thoughtful thumb. “Your Highness will remember that Emma’s husband was a butcher’s son before he rose in the world to become a merchant.” When Roald murmured his assent, Lord Imrah went on, “He has established a fund to pay the apprentice fees of boys of low birth in Port Legann whose parents could never afford the expense.” 

“A worthy endeavor.” Roald flicked his gaze to Shinko in quick consultation. “One the Crown could support.” 

“We would be honored to patronize such a noble effort.” Shinko finished the flow of her husband’s idea, expanding smoothly upon the vision of it. “We will pay the apprentice fees of ten promising lads every year.” 

“A most charitable decision.” Lord Imrah raised his goblet in a toast to her and her husband’s generosity. “One that will earn many more friends in Legann as it bears fruit.” 

“That is the long-term strategy and hope, my lord.” Roald’s face was grim as a gravestone. “Now we must turn our focus to more immediate tactics: planning a lightning strike raid to seize these traitors for questioning and justice.” 

“If my counsel is welcome”— Lord Imrah bowed from his couch—“I will be happy to offer what humble insights I can.” 

“Your counsel is always welcome, my lord.” Roald’s respect for the man Shinko knew he still considered a mentor was carved into his tone and eyes. 

He dispatched Squire Cameron, who had been standing dutifully in the corner with a pitcher of wine poised to refill any emptied cup, to the library to fetch maps of the Port Legann region and miniature troop figurines with which they could model the raid. 

After Squire Cameron reappeared with the requested materials, Shinko hovered with her husband and Lord Imrah over the table between the sofas, plotting a lightning strike against treason, while Squire Cameron looked on, not gaping with the wide-eyed wonder of a naive boy but studying the planned deployment of the soldiers with the icy calculation of a lineage that had produced any of Tortall’s shrewdest generals. The truism that the Minchis had winter in their blood didn’t only refer to the land they called home, Shinko had learned since her arrival in Tortall. 

When their meeting concluded, Shinko was confident in the merits of the plan she had devised with her husband and Lord Imrah, but, on the night of the full moon, her fingers were all thumbs on the wrong hands as she embroidered in her solar while her prince, Lord Imrah, Squire Cameron, and several squads of soldiers implemented the raid in Port Legann. 

Lady Haname sat beside her as the moon hung like a Carthaki orange between the window curtains, both of them creating an elaborate altarpiece to be dedicated to a local temple of the Goddess. Most nights, Shinko took a quiet pleasure and a hidden pride in how all the temples in the south valued her patronage and competed for the favor signified by her royal donations. Tonight she felt as if she were embroidering a prayer for her husband’s safety. 

Embroidery, she observed inwardly, was soothing and had power mingled with politics woven into its beautiful threads. 

Aloud, she murmured as her baby kicked with all the anxiety beating in her own heart, “I hope the altarpiece won’t be finished before my husband’s return.” 

That was her delicate way of saying that she felt a wife’s worry that Roald wouldn’t come back from the raid. 

“It won’t be because His Highness will be home again soon.” Haname’s assurance was soft and comforting as silk Shinko could sink into to drown her fears of loss.


	4. Power of Life and Death

Power of Life and Death

Roald returned from Port Legann with his soldiers and his squire, guarding cartfuls of conspirators as they were carried to the castle in chains. The prisoners were locked in the dark dungeons upon their arrival. Shinko knew that they would be questioned with far more than words, but a princess wasn’t supposed to take an interest in such sordid state affairs. Like a scared mare, she was expected to cringe away from these horrors. Shying away from them was easier when it meant leaning into the strength and solidness of Roald’s chest as they embraced in their quarters after his return. When she leaned into Roald, she could feel more acutely the new life they had formed together, the bulge of her pregnancy not dividing them but uniting them more intricately and inseparably than ever. 

“The mission went as planned?” Shinko cupped his chin, massaging the tension from it with a tender thumb. 

“As well as can be expected.” Roald stroked her cheek, and Shinko rejoiced in the simple gesture of affection, basking in the fact that he was still alive as she might in the warmth of spring sunlight after a long winter. “Plans never go exactly according to outlines, but you know that, my dearest.” 

Shinko did, but perhaps Squire Cameron, busy unpacking her husband’s bags and apparently eavesdropping as well, didn’t, because he burst out with the relish only a boy could have for bloodshed, “It was a dashing raid. We caught the gutter rats by surprise and put them in irons before they could scurry back into their holes. They weren’t squealing when we captured them, but their tongues will loosen on the rack or after their fingers and other unimportant parts are lobbed off.” 

“Cameron!” Roald seemed more appalled than Shinko at his squire’s glee in the grotesque. “Remember your manners please.” 

“Forgive me, Your Highness.” Cameron’s bow could have been intended for Shinko or her husband. “I forgot a lady was present. I shouldn’t have spoken of such vulgarities in front of a lady.” 

“That’s not what I meant.” Roald pinched the bridge of his nose as he studied his squire. “Discussing torture with delight isn’t done in polite society, regardless of the genders of those assembled.” 

“It is in the north, Your Highness.” Cameron wore a wolfish grin. The north of Tortall, Shinko understood, was a more savage place than the south with its emphasis on the art of pleasant more than honest conversation. 

“Very clever, but we aren’t in the north.” Roald’s stern expression wiped the smile from Cameron’s face. “I have a better use for your cleverness than arguing with me. You’ll write a report to my parents for my signature describing our raid and the men we have captured for questioning. You won’t elaborate in detail on any gory future you believe to be awaiting these men, or you’ll have to compose another letter. Understand?” 

“Yes, Your Highness.” Cameron sounded as resigned to his fate as a man mounting the gallows. “Do I have to write to Their Majesties with regular courtesy or exceptional courtesy?” 

“Given that the letter is to the king and queen as well as taking into consideration your current struggles with courtesy, I would say exceptional courtesy is in order, wouldn’t you, Cameron?” Roald’s answer was dry as grass in a drought, and Shinko hid a smile behind her hand. 

“As you say. One report to your parents written with exceptional courtesy coming right up, Your Highness.” Cameron bowed and left to compose the letter Roald had commanded. 

“I was never so troublesome when I was a squire.” Roald looked torn between mild amusement and vexation as Cameron shut the door. His squire often had that effect upon him. 

“Lord Imrah hints otherwise, my love.” Shinko trailed teasing fingers along the slope of her husband’s shoulder. 

“He just needed to develop an appreciation for my Conte charm.” Roald’s eyes chuckled as he gazed down at her. 

“In Lord Imrah’s stories, it’s more your Conte stubbornness than your Conte charm that gave him headaches.” Shinko’s remark melted into the kiss she planted into the curve of Roald’s neck where it fused into his shoulder blade. 

“The Conte stubbornness is the Conte charm.” Roald kissed her forehead, then the tip of her nose, and finally the opening rosebud of her lips. “That’s why it’s an acquired taste, darling. It grows on people like a wart.” 

“Remind me of the appeal of this mythical Conte charm.” For Shinko, it was difficult to speak as she deepened the kiss with Roald. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it.” 

“Happily.” One by one, Roald uncoiled the phoenix combs from her hair, causing the knot she pinned in a cascading waterfall to the side of her face in a fashion imitated by younger court ladies to flow down her back like a flooding river. It was an invitation to intimacy that had once made Shinko’s heart weep in an Eldorne courtyard but now made her soul sing. When he stroked her hair, she forgot how she had missed him every minute since he rode off with his soldiers and his squire to apprehend the traitors. Everything faded as she drank in the soothing strength mingled with softness that was his presence in her arms.

Cameron wrote the report, Roald approved and signed it, and it was dispatched by swiftest courier to the Royal Palace. The reply came by fastest messenger and brought her and Roald into their Yamani garden to discuss its contents in privacy. 

The Yamani garden was where they went when they craved the balance of being in the world but apart from it. The garden they had built for themselves was a tranquil, idyllic image of nature that was too ordered, too perfect to be discovered in the wild. It was created by their wills and their imaginations but designed to appear as if it had blossomed naturally from the landscape. 

As they crossed the mossy stepping stones in the pond swimming with yellow and orange carp Shinko’s brother had shipped from the Yamani Islands, Shinko could see Roald weaving a spell against eavesdroppers. It was a habit he had picked up from his father, though in this garden he typically trusted they wouldn’t be overheard. His wariness on this occasion only drew attention to the seriousness of it. 

“Will our eavesdroppers hear us discussing flowers?” Shinko asked as she leapt from stone to stone with the pond rippling around her. 

“No, they’ll suddenly recall urgent appointments with the barbers to have their teeth pulled.” Roald’s jaw tightened. “The barbers will be quite baffled when they arrive for no reason, and we should learn who are eavesdroppers are if we have any.” 

“What did your parents write you about the traitors, love?” Shinko, as she stepped off the final stone onto the verdant island in the middle of the pond where the gazebo was, noticed that his parents’ words had made the lines in his face harsh, twisting his features with a severity that was fundamentally contradictory to his character. 

“The Crown has absolute authority in matters of treason. A trial before a magistrate is not necessary.” Roald’s response might have sounded an evasion of her question, a recitation of political realities she understood without explanation, but as they entered the gazebo, Shinko was aware that her husband was showing her the respect of answering with reflection, which required time, space, and the most elusive but important virtue: patience. 

She was rewarded for her patience when Roald went on as they settled onto a wooden bench carved with peonies, “My parents have delegated the Crown’s authority to me, instructing me to preside over the justice for these traitors as I deem fit.” 

“The Crown’s authority is the power of life and death where treason is concerned,” observed Shinko although this knowledge was already etched into her husband’s taut cheekbones.

“Yes.” Roald reached for her hand and squeezed it. “It is.” 

Silence—potent with life, death, duty, and treason—fell between them until Roald murmured, “This garden we’ve made is so peaceful. I wish the rest of the realm could be as peaceful.” 

“A piece at a time, we can make the realm peaceful as this garden.” Shinko believed in her bones that what she described was possible but that it would also require death and sacrifice to transform vision into reality. A garden wasn’t peaceful without careful pruning, after all. “Of course, a garden is only peaceful when everything is in its place. Anything out of place must be restored to its proper position or pruned.” 

“That’s not peace, Shinko.” Roald withdrew his hand from hers, and Shinko wondered if he was recoiling form her or what he sensed in his soul he had to do. “It’s repression, and, even if it were peace, it’d come at much too high a price.” 

“Peace demands that traitors die as an example of what happens when order is broken because there can be no peace without order, Roald.” Shinko met his eyes unflinchingly. He loved the law that was the foundation of society enough to recognize that she spoke the truth. “Gardens need pruning, and peace needs order.” 

“Prune too many traitors and you’ll find them growing everywhere like weeds, accusing you of tyranny.” Roald shook his head. “Every traitor we kill is a man with family and friends who might be incited to rebellion by his death whether it’s justified by the law or not.” 

“What is the answer then?” Shinko wasn’t arguing. She wished he had the answer though she doubted he did. 

“I’ll find it by examining my law books.” Roald was all resolve, and Shinko thought that if anybody could locate the loophole in the legalities that would allow justice to be tempered by mercy, it would be her husband. He was earning the epithet the Just by commoners and nobles alike precisely because of this genius of interpreting old laws in marvelous new ways. He didn’t break the rules, but he had epiphanies that discovered the freedom and wisdom inside them. 

Shinko prayed to Yama that he would find such freedom and wisdom in this matter of treason so doing his duty, which Shinko never questioned he would do in the end just as she never doubted that the sun would set in the west, wouldn’t be as dark as she feared in the shadows of her heart that it would be.


	5. Crown's Mercy

Crown’s Mercy

“All these scrolls”—Shinko waved a palm at the mountain range of parchment piled on Roald’s desk in his study, where he had spent days reviewing the laws on treason, while Shinko handled the other aspects of governing herself—“make me worry you are missing the forest for the trees, my dear. The law is clear. The punishment for treason is death. No amount of research will change the truth.” 

“The law is never clear, Shinko.” Roald shook his head. “It always contradicts itself, which means a law can always be founds that can be interpreted to say whatever you wish. You just have to hunt diligently for that law.” 

“Don’t obstruct the issue, Roald.” Shinko tapped his wrist with a scroll. 

“Law is designed to obstruct issues,” Roald pointed out dryly. “It’s very language is written to conceal rather than illuminate meaning.” 

“The law consistently establishes death as the penalty for treason.” Shinko kept her gaze level and firm even if she sympathized with all the effort Roald poured into finding a way to be merciful while still honoring the law. 

“The law also establishes the Crown’s mercy,” Roald reminded her. “A traitor can be spared punishment if the Crown wills it.” 

“If you spare all the traitors in our dungeon, people will whisper that you’re weak.” Shinko’s voice was soft but fierce. Her husband was strong and she would argue with anyone who implied otherwise, but she was determined to warn him that mercy could end in political disaster. “Perhaps a compromise would be appropriate. The leaders can be publicly beheaded to discourage further revolt, but the rank-and-file followers can be permitted to return to their homes and families after witnessing a stark reminder of the fate that awaits traitors.” 

“The followers who experience the Crown’s mercy will likely be the most faithful subjects in the future because they will know they owe their lives to the Crown.” Roald nodded and then went on quietly, “You’re right that it might be perceived as weakness if I’m the one advocating for mercy to traitors but you could help me with that if you’re willing, my love.” 

“I’m your ever loyal wife.” Shinko squeezed his fingers. She might have added “obedient” to her description if she hadn’t understood that would discomfit Roald. “I will do anything to support you.” 

“You don’t have to do this.” Roald’s cheeks were tinged raspberry. 

“Please tell me what this is.” Shinko was all patience and serenity.

Still Roald sounded more awkward than assured as he explained, “In the beginning, the Crown’s mercy was a power more associated with royal women than royal men. Royal women would appeal on their knees for any person they wanted to be spared punishment, and, almost without exception, when the royal women pleaded for mercy, the royal men granted it. There were symbolic and religious reasons behind the custom—the royal women representing the Great Mother’s mercy and the royal men the justice of Mithros—but I believe the tradition’s true benefit was in allowing royal men to preserve their pride and image of strength.” 

“If you’re asking me to kneel before you and beg mercy for traitors, I will do it.” Shinko stroked Roald’s flaming cheeks. Kneeling had been an every day occurrence for her in the Yamani Islands. She didn’t consider it an insult to her pride or a stripping away of her dignity as the Easterners too often regarded kneeling. “I was raised in the Yamani Islands. I am an expert at kneeling with grace if you will pardon my unseemly lack of humility in saying so.” 

“I shouldn’t be asking this of you.” Roald tore at his coal black hair. “My mother would never kneel before my father like that because it would make her appear weak.” 

“She isn’t wrong that kneeling can make a woman appear weak, but there is also power in this kneeling.” Gently Shinko guided her husband’s hands away from his hair before he ripped tufts of it out as sometimes happened when he got agitated. “Not just power for you but for me. The people will see me intervening on their behalf. They will have public proof that I’m for them and for Tortall, not against them or Tortall. That may quell some of the discontent at our marriage if we can show everyone that I’m on Tortall’s side and you retain your authority as Crown Prince, not governed by any foreign power.” 

Shinko thought that it would be impossible for the Tortallans to resist her if she appealed on her knees on their behalf while heavy with the Crown Prince’s heir. As long as she displayed the proper mixture of grace, humility, and dignity, she would present a persuasive sight. On her knees, begging for their mercy, she would compel even the most stone-hearted Tortallan to love her. 

“There’s a certain theater to it.” Shinko finished with a squeeze of her husband’s fingers. “Easterners love their theater, don’t they?” 

“I don’t know about their love of theater, but I know they’ll love you.” Roald lifted her fingers to his lips for a lingering kiss. “As do I. Thank you for doing this for Tortall and for me.” 

“I will do anything for you and Tortall.” Shinko spoke the unvarnished truth without flinching. 

“You are the best wife a man could ask for, Shinko.” Roald’s kiss on her fingertips had transitioned from tender to passionate, and Shinko felt her soul soar in the cage of her body. Her innermost reality, the most fundamental, unbreakable core of herself consisted of being Roald of Conte’s wife. Yet wife, she thought, was too weak a word, too common and small a one that could emerge from a downturned mouth with so many petty, condemning connotations and echoes. For Shinko, saying that she was Roald of Conte’s wife was saying no more and no less than declaring that she was an alive, breathing being with a beating heart in her breast.


	6. Grace and Promises

Grace and Promises

Seated on a canopied dais beside her husband in the square where the traitors were to receive the Crown’s justice or mercy, Shinko turned into a stone princess as she had whenever the Yamani emperor had summoned her to watch the execution of those who had failed in their duties to the empire. 

She stared without seeing as one by one the ringleaders of the conspiracy were dragged to the blood-soaked block where the hooded axman waited to sever head from body and body from soul. As the crowd cheered and jeered, each doomed man would finish a final, silent prayer to the Black God then cross his arms over his shoulders, indicating that he absolved the executioner of any blame in his demise, ensuring that his vengeful spirit wouldn’t return to the Mortal Realms to stalk the man who beheaded him. 

Every time one of the condemned made this last, resigned gesture, Roald would give the executioner a grim nod to proceed. Roald’s face was impassive, a portrait of a righteous prince witnessing the execution of justice. Only Shinko would sense how every death tore at his conscience, a stinging rebuke of his failure to save even those who had betrayed his kingdom and family. She longed to stretch out her hand and squeeze his fingers between hers, but she couldn’t do anything that might compromise his authority—anything that might suggest that he was weak—so she kept her hands folded neatly in her lap. 

When the leaders had been decapitated and carted off in carts—spit upon by commoners who had swigged too many tankards of ale—to anonymous, unhallowed graves at crossroads, Shinko knelt before her husband on the carpet covering the dais. 

“You have cut off the head of the snake that struck at the realm’s heels.” Shinko pitched her voice to be heard by the masses flocking the square but didn’t raise it so loudly that she would sound as if she lacked grace and gentle breeding. She was a lady, and she must seem so before her people at this pivotal juncture. She must appear as much a mother to her people as she did to the child growing in her womb. “Your Highness, in your justice, you have executed the leaders of the vile plot. Now, in your mercy, extend clemency to the hapless followers who were misled into treason, though they are unworthy of your favor, and allow them to be restored to their families and their duties so they may be ever faithful servants of the Crown until their dying breaths.” 

“Your plea for mercy would melt a heart of ice.” Roald lifted her to her feet, and she saw that the prisoners, who had been kneeling as they awaited their deaths, had pressed their foreheads against the cobblestones in a deep homage seldom seen in Tortall. They were prostrating themselves before her, the princess they had reviled, Shinko exalted internally. They had accepted her as their champion, as the one who would interceded on their behalf even though they were traitors. They loved her because she had offered them grace. Their love and gratitude warmed her heart, but it was the love and gratitude in Roald’s eyes that made her soul sing in her chest. “I will grant the clemency you request.” 

Addressing the prisoners, he proclaimed, “Return to your work and your families. Never take up arms against the Crown again or your lives will be forfeit, and always remember that you have received this mercy only because of the intercession of my gracious wife.” 

The prisoners, foreheads against the cobblestones, swore breathless oaths of eternal fealty to the Crown, while the crowd, moments ago a bloodthirsty throng, applauded and toasted with their overflowing tankards the prince’s mercy. The masses, Shinko had learned, were fickle as sea breezes and as pleased with royal benevolence as they were with royal brutality. 

The vows of loyalty from the prisoners and the crowd’s jubilation echoed in Shinko’s ears that night in bed as she curled into Roald’s strong chest. Roald must have been reliving the scene in the square too for her murmured as he stroked her hair, “So many men died in front of us today, Shinko.” 

“You saved more men than you killed today, my love.” Shinko brushed her lips against his cheek, trying to soften the harsh arithmetic all leaders had to engage in to rule fairly. “Focus on the living, not the dead.” 

“You saved them, not me.” Roald cupped her chin with the hand that wasn’t combing her hair. “They love you for that as do I, my dear.” 

“I love you too, and I wish you wouldn’t wrinkle your forehead so.” Shinko trailed a tender finger along his furrowed forehead. “You did the right thing today. Don’t torment yourself over the fate of traitors.” 

“I wrote a report for my parents.” Roald bit his lip. “Will they believe I did the right thing?” 

Ever the dutiful son, Roald craved his parents’ approval. Without it, he seemed as bereft as a shipwrecked sailor adrift in the Emerald Ocean. Of course, King Jonathan and Queen Thayet in their wisdom had assigned Roald to govern the southern district to allow him the space he needed to gain confidence and make his own choices without their constant oversight. Shinko knew that, and so did Roald, though he was prone to forgetting that when he handled something differently than his parents would have. 

“They believe in you.” Shinko kissed the crinkles out of his forehead. “That’s why they delegated the authority to deal with the traitors to you, Roald. They weren’t testing you. They were trusting you to do the right thing.” 

“What if they feel I betrayed their trust?” Roald plucked at a pillow before Shinko, fearing its ruin, tugged it away from his fretting fingers. “What if they think I did the wrong thing because I did something they would never have?” 

“We respect and honor your parents as is proper, but we aren’t your parents, and we must learn to rule in our own fashion as they, in their wisdom, understand.” Shinko silenced the worries on Roald’s lips with a stream of kisses. “Just because we do things differently from your parents doesn’t mean that we do them wrong or your honored parents believe that we do them wrong. There isn’t only one right way of resolving issues. Your parents realize that and so do you when your thoughts aren’t dominated by your anxiety.” 

When a letter from his parents arrived days later expressing admiration for Roald and Shinko’s solution, which the king and queen stated they would’ve have devised for themselves, Shinko felt vindicated as she watched the tension uncoil from her husband’s taut muscles as he remarked, “I think they’re proud of me, Shinko.” 

“Why shouldn’t they be?” Shinko’s eyes sparkled at him in a secret smile. “You’re a responsible, devoted, and obedient son. Any parent would be honored to have you as a firstborn.” 

“When you say it so convincingly, I almost believe you.” Roald chuckled as he folded the letter. “That only builds my ego, Shinko.” 

“What is a wife for if not to build her husband’s ego, darling?” Shinko gave his knee a teasing tap with her fan. 

“I could think of other things, my love.” Roald rewarded her with the laugh that brought joy and meaning to her life.


End file.
